Reddit has started turning its product threads into AI-written review pages with a "buy it now" button, and says it takes no cut of the sales that follow. For affiliates, whose review content earns commission on exactly those clicks, that puts a competitor next to the shopper that has no need to be paid.
Reddit Reviews launched on 10 November for US users on iOS, Android and the web, and will roll out over the next few weeks. The first pages cover about 10,000 frequently discussed products in electronics, health and beauty, home and garden, and fashion. Each one summarises what users have said, splits the sentiment, compares similar products and links back to the original threads. Reddit has been testing the format since February.
Prices, images and purchase links come from brand and retailer catalogues, Reddit says. "Reddit does not receive a cut of any purchases made through the buy it now button on product pages," a Reddit spokesperson told The Next Web, calling the feature "an organic experience". Businesses cannot currently pay to have products featured.
Traditional affiliate review sites, often seen with the larger news outlets are paid for their research when a reader clicks through and buys. Reddit gets its research free, from years of user threads, and is now putting a purchase link beside it without asking the retailer for anything. The likely effect is that a retailer picks up a sale from Reddit's audience at no affiliate cost, while the publisher that might have earned on the same shopper never sees the click.
Reddit has its own reasons. It says half of US shoppers come to the site to check recommendations from AI tools, and its search referral traffic fell meaningfully in the third quarter, which led chief executive Steve Huffman to start moving the site towards logged-in browsing, as we reported on 2 November. Pages that settle a shopping question on Reddit itself give people a reason to stay. Reddit already sells shoppable ads but has not said whether any will appear on review pages.
Commerce publishers have seen part of this before. Ziff Davis, owner of CNET and PCMag, said last week that Google's AI features cited its content about 2.7 billion times in a quarter, nearly ten times the clicks it received, and that it is planning for no recovery in search. With Reddit Reviews, the summary and the shop button sit in the same place, and neither belongs to a publisher.
The pages are currently US-only. Reddit told The Next Web it plans to expand beyond the US through 2027, without naming markets.
Reddit says volunteer moderators and its spam systems, which catch about 25,000 posts and comments a day, will keep sellers from gaming the pages.
